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Convince me, GRUB fans...

cleverhandle

cleverhandle

Diamond Member
Why GRUB?

I've been wondering this for a while, so I figured I'd ask. I'm working on a Red Hat 9 box right now and RH's LILO is old and broken, so I'm taking the dive into GRUB. While I'm certain I will survive, I just don't get it. Why bother with GRUB? LILO is simple and it works. No goofy command shell. No separate device labelling scheme. And it works. I mean, it's just a boot loader. What is it that GRUB could possibly do to make it worth the fuss of learning another tool? Except for it having a snappy name...
 
I don't care much about which bootloader is used, I just use whatever the distro comes with, so Im fine with either 🙂

One nice thing about GRUB though, is the ability to edit the bootcommands from the bootloader, so if you do something stupid with your config, such as spell the filename of the kernel wrong or something, you don't need a rescue disk, just edit it from the GRUB CLI, then once you're booted, edit the config file permanently.
 
Well, you only need to install GRUB once. After that just edit /boot/grub/menu.lst.

I also like its UI. It's just better looking than LILO is. No crazy hitting <shift> or whatever.
 
Originally posted by: Chaotic42
Well, you only need to install GRUB once. After that just edit /boot/grub/menu.lst.

I also like its UI. It's just better looking than LILO is. No crazy hitting <shift> or whatever.
Click to expand...



What he said...

Seriously some other things that I enjoy:

1. Encrypted passwords... if you are dumb enough to use your root password as the password for grub then someone cannot cat the file and get your root password.
2. On the fly editing... (ie second Sunners comments)
3. one file to edit /etc/grub.conf on RH and /boot/grub/grub.conf on most other distros
3. no requirement to 'rerun' grub after updating it.
4. Easier on initial setup:
>grub
>root (hd0,0)
>setup (hdo)
>quit
This is the same regardless of IDE or SCSI

That is about all that I can think of this early in the mornin.


edit >correction and grammar clarification.
 
3. one file to edit /etc/grub.conf on RH and /boot/grub/grub.conf on most other distros
Click to expand...

FYI:
[bart@jbomb /]$ ls -l /etc/grub.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 Sep 29 2002 /etc/grub.conf -> ../boot/grub/grub.conf

Thats an RH7.3 box
 
Tab completion, when editing anything in the grub command shell it has tab completion for just about everything.
 
Yeah, good points all around. I suppose I could see GRUB having some definite merits on a multi-booting box, where you might be changing the configuration frequently. Though I still think XOSL is the superior solution in that case. Thanks, all.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
But that requires a FAT partition.
Click to expand...
Not exactly. You create a FAT partition to do the install, but XOSL changes it to something else when you use the "dedicated partition" option. Thus, it doesn't register to a Windows install as a FAT partition.

But if your point is that you need to have a bit more prepartion for XOSL as far as disk partitioning goes, then yes. It's not easy to work into a system after other OS's are already installed.

 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
Though I still think XOSL is the superior solution in that case.
Click to expand...

But that requires a FAT partition.
Click to expand...

Unix people like to have /home, /usr, /boot, and so on on separate partitions... when you already have 10, what's wrong with one more? 😉
 
Unix people like to have /home, /usr, /boot, and so on on separate partitions... when you already have 10, what's wrong with one more?
Click to expand...

As a unix person, I disagree. I keep as few partitions around as possible, making more just makes for more overhead when I want to change something. Almost all my drives consist of 2 partitions, one swap and one filesystem. The only one that isn't like that is that way because it used to have Win2K on it dual-booted with Linux and consolidating the partitions now that Win2K is gone would be a huge undertaking since it was right in the middle.
 
The biggest thing for me (I don't know if this has been addressed in LILO recently) is that you overcome the need to place the boot partition within the first x cylinders. This is quite important when you dual boot with windows.

Cheers,

Andy
 
Originally posted by: Fencer128
The biggest thing for me (I don't know if this has been addressed in LILO recently) is that you overcome the need to place the boot partition within the first x cylinders. This is quite important when you dual boot with windows.

Cheers,

Andy
Click to expand...

I haven't ever had an issue with putting linux anywhere on a 30 GB drive.
 
I haven't ever had an issue with putting linux anywhere on a 30 GB drive.
Click to expand...

If you use LILO, use a boot partition and want to put Windows at the very start of the disk - you can't. The boot partition must be within so many cylinders of the start of the disk. I may have this *slightly* wrong as for this reason it's been a while since I've used LILO in dual-boot configs.

Cheers,

Andy
 
Originally posted by: Fencer128
I haven't ever had an issue with putting linux anywhere on a 30 GB drive.
Click to expand...

If you use LILO, use a boot partition and want to put Windows at the very start of the disk - you can't. The boot partition must be within so many cylinders of the start of the disk. I may have this *slightly* wrong as for this reason it's been a while since I've used LILO in dual-boot configs.

Cheers,

Andy
Click to expand...

That was one of the original problems. Lilo has had that fixed for quite a while (I can't quantify cause I am too lazy to look through the change logs). I know that someone and I had this discussion on the forums before (with n0cmonkey or nothingman).
 
Originally posted by: Buddha Bart
3. one file to edit /etc/grub.conf on RH and /boot/grub/grub.conf on most other distros
Click to expand...

FYI:
[bart@jbomb /]$ ls -l /etc/grub.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 Sep 29 2002 /etc/grub.conf -> ../boot/grub/grub.conf

Thats an RH7.3 box
Click to expand...

That is a RH set up... most others are in /boot/grub/grub.conf - in RH there is a symbolic link to make it easy but in gentoo & debian (I am guessing as I have lilo installed on my Deb system.) I would expect to find it in /boot/grub/grub.conf or /boot/grub/menu.lst
 
LILO hasn't been limited by the 1024 cylinder things in *years*. It booted past that on the first machine I installed Linux on - a brand-new, cutting-edge P3 500.
 
Originally posted by: cleverhandle
LILO hasn't been limited by the 1024 cylinder things in *years*. It booted past that on the first machine I installed Linux on - a brand-new, cutting-edge P3 500.
Click to expand...

Couldn't remember when lilo picked it up.... Probably before I really "got going" in linux.
 
Features always sound impressive, but honestly none sound all that thrilling to me except not having to run lilo whenever you change something. A command line and an editor in your boot loader? Seems like feature bloat to me. KISS!
 
would expect to find it in /boot/grub/grub.conf
Click to expand...

It is. Read closer. The file in /etc is the symbolic link. The actual config file is in the same place on redhat as it is on the debian system you mention and the "most other distros" panther mentions.
 
I like the fact that lilo is not dependent on the filesystem of any particular OS. If I wipe out /boot with grub, I'm dead. With lilo, I can still boot any operating system that didn't have files in /boot.
 
Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
Features always sound impressive, but honestly none sound all that thrilling to me except not having to run lilo whenever you change something. A command line and an editor in your boot loader? Seems like feature bloat to me. KISS!
Click to expand...

See my original comment for a reason why it's very convenient.
 
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